Carl Sagan

I do think it's very wrong that a former Barnsley youth player is reffing this match. So I'm pleased word has gotten out, meaning at least Madley will know he's under scrutiny, which has to be better for us than not. If there's a contentious call to be made against us, he will think twice. Here's what I put on Twitter yesterday evening. 130,000 views, so at least it's been noticed. 

Bitcoin at around £41k, despite the global attempts to shut it down, shows how powerful the technology remains. And Ether heading towards £2500 too. The biggest disappointment in the UK was the original promise you'd be able to buy a Tesla using Bitcoin, but the climate lobby put a stop to that. But, because of that, they should let you buy with Ether instead. There are plenty of countries where you can use crypto as an everyday thing, but we're still waiting.

9 minutes ago, Mucker1884 said:

 

It seems indisputable that he once played for Barnsley.  Fair do's.  Worth a shrug and a moan of it's own accord, even in an official (club) capacity.

I'm not sure however, that there is any actual record of him being biased against us... or that he "has form"... other than the equally biased views of Rams fans?
I take it DCFC have never made an official complaint against him?

I'd dare to suggest that a professional outfit such as Derby County (The Rams) Ltd would do well NOT to be "all over this".  That would just reek of amateurism, sour grapes, and come across as being very "Un-Mr Clowes"!  As a club, we're better than that!

Hey!  I'm all for us fans slagging him off on here.  That's part of our remit!  I'm happy to add my own name to the catcalls, and claims of Bamfordistic tendencies.  I stand with you, brothers and sisters.

But I wouldn't like to see my football club getting involved. 
If there's room for official complaint post game, then that's a whole different ball game.  The club could then go for the throat, as far as I'm concerned.

🐏

After the event it's too late. As I've said in other threads, there are times you have to use whatever advantage you have. Rather than this be a disadvantage to us, let's turn it into an advantage. And the club doesn't have to be involved. In the hour since I posted, more than fifty thousand people have already seen my tweet about it, meaning Madley will have to think long and hard before giving decisions against us.

5 hours ago, DCFC_Trouty said:

The Madley brothers were both aspiring footballers as teenagers, with Bobby playing in the academies at Leeds and Barnsley while Andy was in Huddersfield Town’s school of excellence.

 

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/how-arch-critic-andy-madley-became-one-of-premier-league-top-referees-2854188

4 hours ago, angieram said:

That's shocking and ought not to be allowed.

4 hours ago, DavesaRam said:

We as a club ought to be all over this in the media citing Madley’s incompetence and clear bias against us.

We won’t, of course, but we are very likely to pay a heavy price for this appointment. 

It is perhaps a good job I didn’t get a ticket for this match. Almost certainly, as with Burnley, we are likely to see Barnsley get into the automatic promotion places at our expense as a direct result of Madley’s decisions.

I do think it's astonishing an ex Barnsley player, and with previous form against us, is reffing the game. Given the club is far too nice to ever mention this, I've put Nixon on the case on Twitter, who's posted it out. So, hopefully, it will be "out there". Meaning Madley is forewarned and may think twice about reaching for a red card or pointing to the penalty spot.

Ravel apparently a free agent, being looked at by Bolton and Peterborough: 

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/derby-county-ravel-morrison-transfer-9114524

5 hours ago, Rambalin said:

Unfortunately we do not have one it is 

ROBERT MADLEY ......the man who could not wait to send Chris Martin of at Burnley incorrectly never forgiven him for that 

I remember Steve Claridge was doing the highlights punditry on the telly. The main TV man was saying although Madley got the main decision badly wrong, perhaps he was influenced by Chris Martin's "repeated fouling" earlier in the game? Madley had blown up something ridiculous like 5 or 6 times against Martin in the first half. Claridge went through all of those decisions and kept saying "it's not a foul, it's not a foul". Referees like Atwell are clearly incompetent, but I've never seen one go into a game with such an agenda as Madley did for that match. Should have been banned.

12 hours ago, Grumpy Git said:

Night games are the worst if like me, you live 100+ miles from Derby. Basically a non-starter.

What a poor survey. This is a key point for me that stops me going to any night games at Pride Park - you can't even get back to London afterwards. Yet there was nowhere to raise the issue.

14 hours ago, Ram-Alf said:

Wow that's some distance away...Specsavers my arse 😁

https://news.sky.com/story/record-breaking-quasar-500-trillion-times-brighter-than-the-sun-discovered-13075866

Interesting astronomy piece. What it doesn't seem to say anywhere is that, the further away you look the further back in time you go. So what we're seeing was 12 billion years ago. With the Big Bang thought to be 13.8 billion years ago, this was happening early in the universe (even today, if our theories are right we're still VERY early considering how far ahead the universe has to go). This will feed into ideas about early galaxy formation - a fascinating emerging problem with astronomers' ideas is that the new James Webb Space Telescope has found too many big early galaxies to fit with our understanding: https://phys.org/news/2023-05-james-webb-massive-galaxies.html. There shouldn't have been enough time for such large galaxies to form.

Even the terminology in the article shows the shift in our thinking/understanding over recent decades. When I was growing up, quasars were mysterious incredibly bright distant objects and the actual existence of black holes was still being questioned, whereas now we understand quasars are generated by the accretion disks around supermassive black holes that are devouring lots of matter at the centre of galaxies.

Final score: Cambridge 1 Bolton 2

You can see from this we're still a fair way behind. But also, as I posted in the match thread for the coming weekend, win away at Barnsley and they are effectively out of it and it's a three-horse raise for the automatic places.

What are we currently looking at?

Out for the season (which ends end April):

• Jake Rooney (ACL)
• Tyreece John-Jules (hamstring)
• James Collins (knee ligaments)

Potentially back mid-to-late March:

• Josh Vickers (thigh)
• Conor Washington (ankle)

Back end Feb/early March

• Corey Blackett-Taylor (hamstring)
• Craig Forsyth (calf)
• Martyn Waghorn (calf)

11 hours ago, Mucker1884 said:

Any chance you could show your working out for these figures?

I'm almost tempted to say they make no sense at all.  

I'm as eager as anyone to reach that point where it is mathematically impossible for those behind us to catch us up, but this appears to be more than a tad premature?  🤷‍♂️

The tacit assumption is that we are going for automatic promotion, so will not have a collapse in form. If we do collapse, it doesn't matter whether or not Barnsley catch us as we're not in the race for the autos anyway.

Win and we'll have 69 points from 34 games. Even just on season-long form that points to 93 or 94 points, but we know how poor we were in the opening games of the season. If you look at, say, our last 20 games, we're averaging 2.25 points a game and a continuation of that would see us end the season on 96 points.

In this situation Barnsley would have 60 points from 33 games, so only a possible 99 if they were to win all their remaining 13 games. Lose 1/13 and their max is 96; lose 1 and draw 1 and they only get 94 points; win 10, draw 2 and lose 1 and they're already down to 92 points.

Win and we're 9 points ahead of them and they will have only 13 games left, so they wouldn't be able to catch us (unless they won at least 12 of those games). Meaning win, and automatic promotion becomes a three-horse race between Portsmouth, Bolton and us. That's what's at stake.

Gayle isn't going to be fit, but will surely start on the bench. Meaning again we don't have a true centre forward, but Sibley showed us the way to goal, and has to start as an attacking midfielder.

Wildsmith

Nyambe   Nelson   Cashin   Elder

Adams

Sibley          Bird

Wilson   Mendez-Laing   Barkhuizen

Bench:  Loach  Bradley  Ward  Hourihane  Smith  Blackett-Taylor  Gayle

Harsh on Thommo and Fornah, but given Warne brought Smith on first last weekend, and Hourihane is the skipper, it's tough to see either of them included.

10 minutes ago, DCFC1388 said:

I have a feeling its a case of we have X amount left of our budget, with the Bird sale we can actually afford Z amount but the cost of signing Gayle is Y amount which is somewhere between both X + Z

Geoff Norcott's at the Derby Theatre on Wednesday, on his basic bloke tour. Me and Mrs Sagan saw him in London, and it was a good night out.

A goal that was a huge moment in the race for promotion. The movement and anticipation for the goal, then the execution, are the highest level. Absolutely magnificent.

Yet it's likely Sibley won't start next week, or if he does he'll probably be first to be hooked around half-time if we're not winning, or will simply be shunted to left back. I hope I'm wrong. I would *love* Warne to prove me wrong. 

2 hours ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

@Carl Sagan is this the angle you were waiting for? 

No, but thanks. This is from the corner flag - I was keen to see it from our cameras behind (or in) the goal. 

1 hour ago, Animal is a Ram said:

I keep watching the goal, and I don't understand how it happens. My dulled brain can't comprehend the few seconds between it leaving Mendez-Laing's boot and it nestling into the back of the net. 

Anyway...

It's the most extraordinary finish. I can't wait to see it from behind the goal to try to understand it better. Presuming it was deliberate, it looks like an incredible piece of skill by Sibley to divert it into the corner that way, given the pace the ball came to him at. But it is indeed vey hard to fathom - one moment we're on the attack and the next the ball is in the net, and it is hard to understand the process.

2 minutes ago, dcfcreece1601 said:

Where did he confirm this?

in his Radio Derby interview. Said we'd sent everything to the EFL on Friday, but we're having to wait because of the restrictions we're working under. (I think that's a quote.) And that we'd hopefully now find out on Monday if he's allowed to sign.

4 minutes ago, Ram-Alf said:

Highlights here

https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/13074290/derby-1-0-stevenage-league-one-highlights

Amazed they found so many. You have to say that's a remarkable finish. Hardly a chance at all, but a quite brilliant goal.

23 hours ago, jimtastic56 said:

If things aren’t going well  tommorow , can we stay with the team ? Not for first 15 minutes till the beer wears off , and not on the concourse after 30 minutes . But for 90 + minutes. COYR 

Huge shout out to the fans today. Sounded amazing on the radio. And Warne commented it was the best he'd heard Pride Park.

Absolutely fantastic to gain 2 points on Bolton today. They play again on Tuesday, away at Cambridge. Obviously you'd expect them to win but, should they drop points we're properly second (based on points per game) for the first time this season. Currently it's:

1. Portsmouth 2.12 ppg
2. Bolton 2.03 ppg
3. DERBY 2.00 ppg
4. Barnsley 1.88 ppg

It's a four-horse race. Win at Barnsley on Saturday and it's a three-horse race. Today's other results for the top 4.

• Portsmouth 4 Reading 1
• Bolton 3 Charlton 3
• Fleetwood 1 Barnsley 2

15 minutes for Brown today, with Gateshead winning 2-4 away at Wealdstone, all the goals before he came on.

Knee ligament damage, says Warne. At least not before mid-April. That's the very earliest.

9 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

But he changed things and got the win? I understand what went before wasn’t enjoyable to watch but how can Warne not be due some credit for picking a side that kept a clean sheet, that battled with a bullying side, and making the subs to get us the 3 points?! Some people really won’t give him any dues, it’s surely ok to say some of it was bad and he did what he needed to…. Eventually 

For the Warne thread I suppose, but as I've said before, 90-95% of managers would have us in a better position. With no striker, Warne benches our most dangerous attacking midfielder? He got lucky.

Nine wins now needed from the remaining 13 matches. If one of those is away at Barnsley next Saturday, it effectively makes it impossible for them to catch us and cements this as a three-horse race for automatic promotion. Absolutely crucial victory.